Afrin – North-Press Agency
On Saturday, about 750 families returned to their villages and towns in the western countryside of Aleppo and Idlib governorates after calm prevailed in northwestern Syria upon the ceasefire agreement between Russia and Turkey on the 5th of March.
Last Saturday, the Deir Ballout crossing, which separates Idlib and northern areas of Aleppo, was opened for one day and on one way towards Idlib governorate, after it was closed due to the new coronavirus (COVID-19), while it opened the next day, Sunday, in the opposite direction towards the Afrin region, north of Aleppo, until eight o'clock in the evening.
The General Administration of Crossings of the Salvation Government, the political wing of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), announced in early April that the Deir Ballout and Ghazawiya crossings were closed due to the new coronavirus.
The two crossings link the areas controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups in the northern countryside of Aleppo with the areas controlled by HTS and the opposition groups in the Idlib governorate and the western countryside of Aleppo.
Muhammad Hijazi, a displaced person from the village of al-Abzimo of the al-Atarib district in the western countryside of Aleppo, told North-Press: "Life in tents lacked the essentials for a healthy life. All that pushed me to come back. You cannot compare the house to a tent which can barely accommodate a few people."
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham closes the crossings to the movement of civilians, except within the days specified (Saturday and Sunday), while it keeps the crossings open to commercial movement on both sides.
Ahmed al-Asmar, from Idlib, described the closure of the crossings in the face of civilians and opening them to commercial traffic as a "crime."
"There are hundreds of families who want to return to their villages and homes, as there is no source of livelihood for them after they left their towns, and they have the right to return to them and to their work after the announced ceasefire."
Moreover, activists from the city of Afrin said that the number of tents is decreasing on a weekly basis in the Jabal al-Zaydiya and Maamal al-Birin camps, on the outskirts of Afrin city, as displaced people return to their areas in Idlib governorate in northwestern Syria.